Under Wraps
by Vanity-chan
Summary: AU. SasuSaku. Sasuke’s life seems to be going downhill lately. Until a person from his past came back to change it all, just when he decided to be content with his life. That would just be the cherry on top of his sundae of misery. ON HIATUS.
1. Prologue: Replay

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. It's Masashi's. The one who went off killing his characters. :P -Peace! :D

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AU. SasuSaku. Sasuke's life seems to be going downhill lately. Until a person from his past came back to change it all, just when he decided to be content with his life. That would just be the cherry on top of his sundae of misery.

* * *

Under Wraps  
By: Vanity-chan

_A/N: Okay… This chapter's short, I tell you. This has not been planned. I just found this chapter while I was rummaging through my long-untouched files… Oh well. Have a nice read. The story's a bit… odd. But… I am willing to take the risk. :)_

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"Just clean up and close the bar, okay, Sasuke?"

Rolling my eyes, I grunted in response to Kakashi and leaned back against the counter. The slow clicking of his shoes against the marble floor was the only sound in the room. Bored, I listened to it until he opened the door, stepped out and was gone.

I sighed, glancing at the bottles and glasses on the counter, some empty, some half-filled and that was the moment I completely realized the time and effort I would be wasting for the task Kakashi left me.

I knew I had no choice but to agree. From now on, I would be doing this every night anyway. Besides, Kakashi had been my guardian-slash-mentor-slash-father for half of my life. When my family died in a plane crash (and my brother just disappeared), Kakashi adopted me and treated me pretty much like his own son.

He sometimes told me that I reminded him of his younger self, but after eight years of living with him, his past is still nothing but a mystery to me. It's as if I knew a lot about him yet at the same time, I knew only a little.

_Sigh. _I guess that's the way life will go on for us until we die.

I slid off the chair and walked behind the counter to gather all the used glasses and bottles in one corner, my mind unconsciously wandering off thinking different trains of thoughts.

The door opened, pulling me back into reality. I frowned. Kakashi told me to clean up, so I shouldn't be entertaining any customers. I raised my head and turned away from my chores to look at the door. Maybe I had just been hearing things. I was hoping that no one was there, so I could leave the place instead of standing around like a moron cleaning a bar I did not even own.

You could say that I was surprised by what I saw.

It was a young lady, probably around my age, wearing the uniform of the school I was going attending. Her short, pleated black skirt reached down inches above her knees, and she was wearing knee-high socks and black shoes. The top consisted of a white long-sleeved shirt and a black tie. The typical high school uniform for girls.

The strangest thing about her though was her short pink hair that reached just below her chin, and her bright green eyes that struck me with an odd familiarity. The pale girl looked flustered and unsure, but her stride was delicate.

I furrowed my eyebrows, watching as she walked to the counter and directly bypassed me. Silently, I racked my brain for any names of pink-haired girls that I knew of.

Her eyes weren't focused on anything at all, because when she looked at me, it felt as if she was staring right through me and at the bottles of wine on the cupboard.

Dazed, I opened my mouth to speak. "Hey—"

"I want to drown in a bottle of vodka and forget about everything. Tonight."

The moment she spoke, the searching in my head stopped, and I immediately recognized her, getting rid of the mystery of the familiarity that struck me. Her voice was soft. Uncertain, and nervous in tone.

But I chose not to tell her that, to remind her about herself, since she wanted to just "drown herself in a bottle of vodka" and forget about every single problem she had. I was—no, still _is_ a part of that problematic world she wanted to escape from.

"Why would you want to do that?" I asked in a quiet voice, almost hesitant.

She shrugged, placing both her arms on the counter lazily. She probably thought that I was probing her with that question, and chose not to reply.

Well, whatever. I shouldn't care about her problems anyway. Why shou—

"If there was one thing I would never do, it's to cry."

Her answer didn't even give anything away. She was really good at this.

"And this seems to be the easiest alternative."

"I see…" I walked to the corner, still behind the counter and took a glass and a bottle of vodka and opened it. The resounding pop made her eyes flicker towards me, but I was sure, even if she stared at me for a long time, that there was not even a single flash of recognition in her green eyes.

Quietly, I placed the glass on a napkin and let it slide down to where she was sitting, and she took it just as wordlessly, staring at the melting ice in the glass.

I walked in front of her and poured alcohol in her glass. She didn't drink the vodka, and instead, shook the glass with her hand and listened to the cubes of ice clinking against it.

I lost track of how long she was shaking the glass and simply staring at the ice cubes. I was beginning not to care anymore, when she suddenly spoke again.

"I want to drink, but I can't." Her soft voice had been merely above a whisper, and I had to lean in to hear it.

"Would your parents have wanted that?" I asked, almost conversationally, as I turned to get a stool to sit on. I grabbed one and sat on it, clasping my hands together and placing them on the counter.

She flinched. "W-Well… no. They wouldn't have," She paused, watching me play with my fingers as I clasped and unclasped them together, probably as an excuse to look at anything but the glass of vodka. Her fingers were shaking as she pushed the drink towards me.

"So, you're not drinking anymore?" She nodded, staring in my eyes for the first time, not seeing through me.

Somehow, this made her cry. I wonder if she had recognized me judging by the odd stare she gave me, but even if she did, she didn't show it.

"Why? They wouldn't know. They're not here to see it." I said in an expressionless voice, my mind taken over by the soft breaths she was making. I didn't realize her leaning in, or me leaning in. Her hands clenched at my shirt, successfully pulling me towards her. The glass of vodka toppled over and fell down the floor. But I ignored it.

I couldn't think clearly. All I knew was that something, even though I did not know what it was, had to be done. This was quite the scene, and I was glad no one was here to see it.

"Yes… They're not here. They wouldn't know. They're dead."

This sudden revelation pulled me out from my hazy thoughts and I gazed on awkwardly. She cried harder. She had tried her hardest not to, and this made her cry even harder.

Hesitantly, I put a hand on her shoulder. "Um, Sakura?"

I realized my grave mistake a bit too late.

Her hiccups stopped abruptly, her wide green eyes stared back into mine.

"S-Sasuke-kun?"

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tbc.

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A/N: Prologue, that's why it's short, so don't go on asking me about the length. :) Also, don't hurry me up with this, I have to recall my plans for this fic since it's been buried for too long. :P

Oh. And REVIEWS make me WRITE. So without reviews, I don't have the strength to update! Go on and review please. :)


	2. Chapter One: Differences

She was screaming like a lunatic, the first time we met.

We were six then.

And I was sick, on a hospital bed, having been bed-ridden for days. I still remember vividly how bored I was and how I was awfully disgusted at the hospital food.

And then she came, bursting into my room like a prey hiding from its predator...

_"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh--"_

...With that shrilly, piercing, high-pitched, ear-shattering scream.

Her green eyes suddenly bore into mine. _"-aaaah?"_

Her scream died down. I blinked. _"Why are you screaming?"_

She bent her knees to crouch low, pressed a finger against her lips as a gesture to shut me up. _"Sshh..."_

Utterly surprised, I nodded and wordlessly examined her.

She wore an incredulously large green ribbon, her short pink hair barely reached her shoulders. Clad in a matching green baby doll dress and equally green shoes, she looked like some character out of a fairytale...

...Like Alice in Wonderland or something.

I watched as she pulled the green ribbon exasperatedly, almost as if she hated the thing and threw it on my bed.

She sat on the floor and pulled on the white hospital sheets, crawled under the bed after she poked her head out, looked at me and whispered, _"Don't tell anyone."_

I nodded again, not wanting to argue.

The door opened, and in came a fat, old lady, clutching the front of her dress as she tried to catch her breath. She looked at me for some seconds and then took a deep breath.

_"Did a little girl with pink hair come in here?"_

So this was the predator.

I felt a punch from under the bed and I glanced at the green ribbon beside me. _"No."_

She shut the door with a thud. I felt the bed move as the girl moved out from under the it. She sighed, turned around to look at me, and grinned. _"Thanks."_

_"Why were you hiding?"_

_"I'm scared of in-inject..."_

I raised an eyebrow. _"Injections?"_

Her eyes brightened. _"Yes! Yes, that's it. In...ject-ions,"_ She paused, staring at me. _"Wow. You're smart."_

She sat on my bed, her eyes fixed on the I.V. pole. She traced the transparent wire with her eyes and then looked at my taped hand. She scrunched up her face, almost as if in pain. _"That hurts, doesn't it?"_

I shrugged, not knowing what to say. _"Not really."_

_"Whoa..."_ She peered closer to my face. Then she giggled. _"You're one tough guy. I want to be your mommy!"_

I stared dumbly at her. _"Huh?"_

_"You know, I'm going to be your mommy and I'm going to cook you food and then you'll go to work-"_

_"Oh, you mean my wife. That's not a mommy."_

It was her turn to stare dumbly at me this time. _"Y-Yeah. I knew that!"_

She took the thick green ribbon from the top of my pillow and tried hard to tie it into a small loop. And then she handed it to me.

I looked at it, then at her. _"What is this?"_

She lifted her hand and splayed her fingers in the air, wiggling her ring finger. _"Place it on my finger. An eng-engage-"_

_"An engagement ring."_ I filled in for her.

_"Yes, that! Hurry!"_ She pushed her hand closer to me.

_"O-okay."_ I took her hand in mine and slipped the ribbon-slash-ring on her finger. She beamed at me after.

_"Yay! So, you're going to marry me someday, aren't you?"_

...You could say I was speechless.

...

_"Right? Right?!"_

...

...But...

_Marry ME..._

...

_Someday..._

...

I agreed. Whole-heartedly.

...

I smiled a small smile. "Sure."

...

And it wasn't an empty promise.

-

-

-

She was screaming like a lunatic, the first time we met.

-

-

-

She was screaming at me, telling me to marry her, when we didn't even know each other's names.

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Under Wraps  
By: Vanity-chan

Chapter One: Differences

_A/N: At last. I had found the time to post this. Buuut. I'll probably rewrite it. Made an update just for kicks. And it's Sakura's birthday too. I'm sad in the end, since it's just an update. T_T I guess I'll have to work my lazy ass off. Need something better. :P_

_So, moving on... This is unlike all my other fics. I'm taking a risk here, writing a fic from the perspective of a person completely different from me. :P Oh. Wait. The chapter won't be in Sasuke's POV this time. I'm having a hard time writing in his POV. Haha. Have a fun read._

_Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, it wouldn't be action-packed. It would be too fluffy instead. And Masashi wouldn't want that. :P_

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Loud rock music blaring through the speakers.

Neon lights spinning around the room.

People swaying and rocking to the beat of the music.

Sasuke winced as soon as he set his foot inside the bar. He never enjoyed these kinds of things, these kinds of places. He preferred quiet and peaceful places.

But of course, he had no choice. He was seven when he was first thrust headfirst into this kind of world. Chaotic. Dark. Insane.

Yesterday, when he got inside this bar, it had been already closing time, and there were no other person inside but Kakashi. Now, the bar was jam-packed, just as Kakashi said it had always been.

"Sasuke," His long-time guardian greeted him with a nod.

He nodded back. "Hn."

They always greeted each other like this, like they were just acquaintances. At first, it had been rather annoying to Sasuke, and he'd mentally yell at himself for even caring for his mentor. His excuse was always _the _incident - his parents' death, his brother's disappearance, but he realized after a while that it was more than that.

He had grown fond of Kakashi, learned to love him as a father, even. Naturally, this attachment would've been frustrating to Sasuke, but he realized it was nice to have a new constant in his life.

"How was school?"

Ah. He didn't want to be reminded about that. "It was fine."

Kakashi chuckled from behind the counter. "Which translates to... It was hell."

Sasuke exhaled in aggravation. His guardian was right, of course, but he'd be damned before he gave Kakashi the satisfaction of knowing he was right. "No, no. It was... uh, nice. I met old friends."

"Old friends you'd rather not see again?" Kakashi pulled out his favorite book and searched for the page where he left off.

He almost rolled his eyes there. Oh well, might as well be damned now.

"Alright. Yes, it was hell, and yes, I met old friends I'd rather not see again," he muttered, sounding rather put off.

But then again, he didn't have any reason to feel bad about Kakashi reading him so easily. Rather, he should be happy to have someone to talk to after so long; they haven't talked to each other in a long while.

"Hmm," Kakashi pursed his lips beneath his mask, pondering the situation. "Who might that friend be? I'm guessing it's just one."

"Maybe," he deftly avoided a complete answer, but settled for something that would satisfy the man.

"Opening up to me now, Sasuke? I thought you'd forgotten about me already."

"Not possible," he said almost offhandedly. "But it gets rather difficult to have a casual conversation with you when you have that in your hands."

Kakashi looked up from his book for a moment and smiled at him. "We'd rather not talk about that..."

"Right," Sasuke smirked, even though Kakashi couldn't see it.

It was pleasant to have a father-to-son conversation.

"...The scenes in this book are too... explicit for your taste."

But then again, not really.

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The night when Sakura had stumbled upon a lonely Uchiha, she had locked herself in her room, and had huddled herself against the foot of her bed, deep in thought as she stared at the stark, white walls.

She had stared at him stupidly with wide, teary eyes and remained quiet after she whispered his name. Sasuke on the other hand, awkwardly offered her a ride home in his motorcycle. She had refused him at once, telling him she could take care of herself.

She even brought out old topics, like him calling her weak, his unexpected departure and everything else that happened in between. This was a mistake on Sakura's part, since she had vowed to herself to never go back to those memories that she had tried hard to bury deep in the recesses of her mind.

She had scolded herself then and she wondered if she should've gone someplace else, like her best friend Ino's apartment. They could have bawled out all her bottled emotions while eating chocolates - a tradition they made only when they're depressed. But then again, her aunt would be devastated if she didn't go home.

Her aunt, the sister of her mother, had been the closest living relative she had. Her other relatives were either too resentful of the inheritance she got, or too detached to care.

And now, after a day at school where she had at least four fateful meetings with Sasuke, Sakura found herself glancing at her cell phone more often than usual, waiting for it to ring from a caller that she never had a chance to talk to.

It appeared that even after what had transpired between them the night she saw him for the first time after he left many, many years ago, Sasuke still acknowledged her as a schoolmate, at least. When she asked for his number, he gave it to her without second thoughts.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Sakura fixed her disheveled hair, straightened her slightly crumpled clothes and then grabbed her purse and her cell phone. Kasumi, her personal maid ever since she was little, entered the room after a knock.

"Young mistress, where are you off to?"

She smiled, putting on her shoes. "I'll be back. It seems that I forgot something at school."

-

"Hey, teme!"

Distracted, Sasuke muttered, "What?"

Uzumaki Naruto watched Sasuke's fast but sure hands grab bottles of beer and place them on the counter, tending to the many customers asking for drinks.

"Aren't you happy to see us?" Naruto, Sasuke's self-proclaimed best friend, gestured a hand to his companion, Nara Shikamaru. "We came here to see you!"

Shikamaru shook his head in disbelief. "Naruto, can't you even see he's busy?" His eyes wandered the place. "It's a full house."

"Ain't it always?" Naruto sat on a stool, placing his arms on the counter and watching Sasuke work. "Hey, I want a beer."

Sasuke glared at him. "Hn." Nevertheless, he placed a shot glass in front of him and opened a bottle of beer for him.

"Since I'm your best friend, can this beer be free?"

Sasuke scoffed. "You were the only one who decided to be my best friend. Besides, it's only been a day of being 'best friends,' dobe."

"Ass."

"-hole."

"You stupid bartender!"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "The beer's not for free anymore."

Naruto beamed so suddenly. "I take it back. Oh, Sasu-kay, your gorgeous, smoldering eyes captivate me!"

Shikamaru tilted his head away, as if he was disgusted and that the extra space would somehow give him back his comfort zone. "Quit it with the mush, you guys."

Sasuke leaned against the counter when Naruto and Shikamaru were the only ones left in front of him. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

Naruto promptly patted his arm. He was rewarded with a nearly imperceptible sigh. "Don't worry, te- Oh my fucking god..."

His two companions looked at him incredulously, as if he had grown two heads. His eyebrows went up, staring at something by the door.

"S-she's... beautiful." Naruto whispered, dazed.

Sasuke and Shikamaru looked at each other. Now that was something. Naruto rarely used such words.

-

_Turn the lights off in this place,  
__And she shines just like a star._

_-_

Sasuke followed his gaze, seeing a few people craning their heads towards the entrance of the bar in interest.

-

_And I swear, I knew her face..._

_-_

And there he saw _her. _

Her green, green eyes.

"Sakura."

-

-

_I just don't know who you are..._

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A/N: It's CRAPPY. T_T I know. But still...

Reviews make me write. Without them, I won't survive (Oh, just ignore the horrible attempt at rhyming). *cheeky grin* I won't survive to write the next chapter, Seriously. Like, SERIOUSLY (Okay, Grey's Anatomy is rubbing off on me).

So just click the button. You know you want to. :D

--Vanity-chan


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